This won't increase the use of Stealth Rock weak Pokemon. Why would a new Rapid Spinner be able to raise the usage Bug, Flying, Fire, Ice, etc anymore than our current Rapid Spinners do?

Now on to jas61292's questions.

What existing Pokémon individually affect the usage of entire types?
Pokemon like Lati@s greatly affect steel-types usage in today's meta. If these dragons (and others) didn't exist in OU, steel-types might see less use since other Pokemon carry ressitances they have and also have better offensive typing. Politoed is another Pokemon that affects the use of whole types. Water-types are obviously affected by the use of Politoed since the rain it brings boosts their STAB attacks and allows the use of abilities like Dry Skin and Hydration. Politoed also indirectly affects the use of types that are weak to Water-type attacks as the rain increases the damage they take and even weakens the STABs of Fire-types.

What ways are there to change a typing’s usage outside of simply countering/being countered by them?
Obviously, the removal of Stealth Rock could increase many types usage greatly. Outside of this, rain as I stated above, affects discourages the use of fire-types since it weakens their STAB attacks. Can't think of anything else right now.

What elements of a Pokémon are most important when dictating how it interacts with other types?
A Pokemons ability is a key part of how it interacts with other types. What if Gastrodon or Shedinja lost their abilities? Gastrodon wouldn’t see as much usage since it can’t deal with water-types as well anymore and Shedinja would simply see no use since it is KOed by everything without Wonder Guard. Movepool is also a factor in interaction with other types. Pokemon with good coverage moves can deal with more types than Pokemon with narrow coverage.

Electric would also be a very good option. With Salamence and Dragonite both carrying Flying as their secondary type, electric hits them for super-effective damage.

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The Dragon Type actually RESISTS electric attacks, so Dragonite and Salamence are only hit neutrally, while Garchomp is immune. The other dragon types resist it making Electric rather lackluster imo.

What existing Pokémon individually affect the usage of entire types?

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Politoed / Tyranitar / Ninetales are the big three that stand out, as well as Ferrothorn and Heatran to an extent due to their ability to do well against certain weather. Dragonite, Garchomp, Salamence, Latios, Latias and Kyurem-B also set the benchmark pretty high for the usage of steel types, while Tornadus-I also has an impact on increasing the usage of steel types due to many teams needing a flying resist or risk getting swept.

Deoxys-D sorta has a heavy influence in teambuilding since it increases the usage of Scizor / Tar and potentially rain (since its so damn hard to beat the damn thing) but not quite as much as the above.

What ways are there to change a typing’s usage outside of simply countering/being countered by them?

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Creating a pokemon that can counter the main abusers of a typing I guess can decrease a typings usage, as well as creating / having a move that directly impacts negatively on said type. For example Stealth Rock is the big one here which dropped the usage of a fair number of pokemon. (Im aware CAP doesn't make cutom moves / abilities just answering the question as best as I can)

What elements of a Pokémon are most important when dictating how it interacts with other types?

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How well it checks / counters / sets up / gains momentium / forces advantage etc etc. If you are creating a pokemon to beat a type, you need to disadvantage it, which can include forcing it into a negative situation (for example Ferrothorn sets up Spikes), walling its main abusers (Heatran / Ferrothorn to an extent), etc etc. Their isn't really a lack of options to shutdown a type, you just need to decide what area of it you want to target (Abusers / Inducers / The types advantages / disadvantages etc).

So of these Pokèmon, we had 5 Pokèmon more inclined to be attacking (Scizor, Ferrothorn, Dragonite, Tyranitar, Breloom), 4 Pokèmon more inclined to be special attacking (Politoed, Heatran, Rotom-W, and Latios), and 1 Pokèmon that could go either way (Jirachi).

From these stats, we don't see much of a trend towards physical attackers rather than special attacking. So really, a perfect Pokèmon wouldn't just be taking boosted Outrages, it need to take boosted Hydro Pumps and Draco Meteors too. So really, the "metagame-breaking Pokèmon" would need to be an all around bulky wall, perhaps a more mixed Blissey sort.

But where's the fun in designing another wall? Maybe we're viewing this from the wrong angle when we think about walls. We've seen what happens to all-around walls - Porygon2 is currently a UU made to tank. But we what we really need to view is how a wall could function in a new way. Perhaps it has a typing we've overlooked overall, perhaps because it's uncommon. Perhaps it has a typing with commonly used types, like a Dragon/Steel.

But, what if the typing exists? A Water/Grass could do well if we designed it well, to sponge hits rather than the SubSeeding Ludicolo.

Maybe it's time to finally make the Poison/Steel defensive behemoth we've wanted for ages? Who knows, these are only comments. We may just go with an anti-rain sweeper. :)

Rhys deAnno, you make a very good suggestion. To make that idea a tad more effective, though, add the Scrappy ability. That way, nothing is immune to Rapid Spin, and you can pull it off against Ghost-types. I think this combo has been suggested for past CAP's.

The typing of this CAP is not the first thing I would discuss as there are actually quite some types that can at least check lots of threats that are mentioned. For some Pokemon it is just enough to get a non-super effective hit to switch in.

A lot of power comes from the fact that standard counters share weaknesses which can be typing but also biased defenses and especially low speed, which allows the offensive player to counter in time. Counters are often too predictable in this metagame.

We should decide whether the CAP should be able to come in repeatedly or have a higher chance to stay in, after the threat it is meant to counter switches out. The more we expect this CAP to do at once, the higher the BST will be. But this will not allow more variety and the only shift to be expected are the chosen coverage options of our current sweeper.

A very necessary early restriction should be made by getting a vague description of stat limits to not make the mistake to create a Pokemon that simply recentralizes the metagame.
If we make an slightly imperfect raw stat spread and therefore define the expected role, we could alter the needed typing and movepool to fit the CAP´s intention.

It could also help to look at existing Pokemon and discuss what they lack to counter certain threats. Weezing for example might be a better Dragon and Fighting counter, if it could hit back harder and recover reliably. But he has the right mixture of typing, ability and defensive stats to be viable, although he does not hit the 500 while being a levitating steel/ghost type. I guess Ludicolo would be an even better research object to get some information.

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The thing is that for this concept to be successful it must necessarily centralize the metagame to some degree, non? For one Pokemon to affect the usage of entire types would certainly seem to fulfill the criteria of 'centralization'. We must distinguish between something being 'overpowered' and something being 'overcentralizing'.

I think it's important that CAP5 isn't disproportionately concerned with countering. If it is designed to counter the prevalent types in OU and be countered by those less seen, what will ultimately happen would probably not be a sea change in type usage but rather a surge in the usage of one or two specific Pokemon that counter CAP5 - likely seen on teams alongside the old threats that CAP5 is meant to discourage the use of because, obviously, they would have good synchronicity.

I don't think that's the aim of this concept; the aim is to introduce conditions into the metagame that foster usage of lesser seen types while pushing existing forces aside. The aforementioned weather conditions and entry hazards are major factors. What else?

Another factor which hasn't been considered too deeply is vulnerability to trappers; a weakness to pursuit (or Dugtrio) could be a major factor in a type's viability. In theory, anyway; in practice, Psychic type is way up there, although often with a helpful secondary typing (Jirachi, Metagross) or obscene bulk (Deoxys-D, Reuniclus to an extent). But that does remain an angle we might approach CAP5 from; something that could trap common offensive Dragons, Steels or rain sweepers then truly threaten them would certainly be a discouraging presence in the metagame, whatever type it itself was.

Let me start off by saying we should probably avoid the topic of ridding stealth rocks rather than resisting it, not being affected by it, etc. It's pulling away the idea of type dominance and towards stopping hazards. Anywho, into the topic.

The main thing I notice when you look at Dragon, Water, and Fighting types is that they are all mostly inclined towards a Hyper Offense style of playing. Dragons in OU all have absurd attacking stats- Altaria is the one Dragon weighted considerably towards Defensive stats- she sits nicely in RU. Dragon is also only resisted by Steel, pointed out numerous times by other people. Water have emerged as a major attacking type from the bonus damage in Rain. Water is also only resisted by Dragon, Water, and Grass. Nine times out of ten that Water type is also carrying an Ice move for those Dragon and Grass types and probably have a secondary STAB to use against other Water types. Finally, Fighting types have emerged as the premier wall-breakers and leaders of HO teams. They destroy Steel types- allowing their fellow powerhouse-typed Dragons to then sweep easily. Fighting is easily the reason many types are uncommon. It hits for SE damage against 5 types- tying Ground for the most. Dark, Rock, Ice, and Normal types all cower in fear of Fighting moves. They are all some of the least used types in OU, most notably Normal, with only Blissey sporting a normal typing in OU.

This all being said, no type can reliably stop all three. Steel/Ghost with Water Absorb/Storm Drain could do it, but that would be kind of absurd. Speaking of Defensive types, let's review Steel.

Steel has a whopping 11 resistances and 1 immunity. Only Electric and Water hit it for neutral damage. Fighting, Fire, and Ground however can all hit for SE damage. Steel in OU is probably sporting a Grass/Bug dual typing with their Steel, just raising their Defensive capability. Heatran usually runs an Air Balloon to stop Ground types. There's a large amount of factors in Pokemon that just completely encourage the use of Steel types. How does this all form together?

Steel and Dragon go hand in hand. The reason they're both popular is because of the other. Dragon types usually run Earthquake and a fighting move to take care of steels, while Steels stop them from using their STAB Dragon type moves. Dragons are obviously the more dominant type, so taking them down somehow would allow for Steel usage to drop, allowing a type like Poison to have less trouble.

Water and Fighting are arguably the two best attacking types in the game. In fact, I've seen many an argument that Keldeo is the best Pokemon in the game- it just so happens to be sporting a Water/Fighting typing. However, there's one key thing between the two. Water attackers are usually Specially based. Fighting attackers are usually Physically based. With some exceptions (i.e. Infernape, Gyarados, Lucario), this is a common trend between the two. Creating a wall without typing or ability help would most likely only stop one of these. It is for that reason I believe we should focus on an offensive Pokemon that can stop dragons.

When you look at Dragons, you most likely see a MixMence, a Mixed Hydreigon, a Garchomp, or a Lati@s. All of these Pokemon are extremely viable Wallbreakers and Revenge Killers. But what if we could stop this? What if we created an Ice type that hits faster with enough attacking stat to OHKO w/choice item/LO? Weavile is notable in this mark with it's ice shard, but should it fail to OHKO it's probably getting smacked around by a STAB Dragon attack or a Fire attack. Mamoswine works the same way, but still is getting smacked around because Ice Shard simply is enough to OHKO. You need a Pokemon faster than the Dragons that can hit them with a Blizzard, Ice Beam or Ice Punch that can OHKO them. Now, you are probably coming to the conclusion that this would just bring a rise in fighting types. However, you're building a team, and you would probably use a ghost type to stop that strategy, bring up usage in the Ghost typing as well. This could form one of the most potent offensive cores. You would be forced to use something with Bullet Punch such as Scizor to stop the ice type, bring up usage in attacking Steel types, something that is highly uncommon. Need to stop Scizor and the ice type? Fire types, another unused type. This links back to water, which I believe is the hardest part about the project. The only suggest I could bring about is something to stop Rain, such as using Drought to support those fire types and support usage of Grass types to stop the Water types. Weather is a job for another CAP, however, so I'd like to avoid that. If you want to make the Pokemon a powerhouse of uncommon typing in general, you could make a highly offensive yet frail Ice/Ghost type. This is already seen in Frosslass, but she only has potential in setting spikes- not consistently stopping Dragons. The ice typing stopping Dragons would allow a huge rise in types that are shut down by Dragon pokemon, which could completely reshape the game. What if Ice types become the new Dragon types? What if Fire became the new Steel type, purposely used just to stop Ice types? Rock/Ground types could then become the new fighting types, Attack Stat based attackers used to give Ice that extra push to completely wreck teams with no counters.

This post is not meant to simply just suggest my idea. I was hoping to bring up some points that could help others come up with even better ideas while staying on topic. Remember, we aren't here to stop hazards or weather- we're here to give uncommon types the extra push to find their niche which causes a lowering in very common types.

Thought these were some good questions to get us going in the right direction so i thought i'd give them a whirl

What existing Pokémon individually affect the usage of entire types?

There are actually quite a few when you think about it. The obvious ones would be all of the weather starters and dragons and steels since they effect each other directly.

Rapid spin users (forretress, starmie, donphan, tentacruel) and spin blockers also have a pretty big impact on this. Spinners allow more flying(tornadus, salamence, d-nite/ bug(volcarona)/ fire(ninetales, victini)/ ice(kyurem, kyurem-b) types to be used. This in turn brings ghosts(jellicent, gengar) into play to block rapid spin, and then in turn a team that wants to get their hazards off the field will try to pursuit trap the ghost type by using a dark type(ttar, weavile) or scizor.

Rain in general being such a big threat forces you to run something along the lines of sp. def celebi, jellicent, gastrodon, sp. def rotom-w, or sp. def jirachi. Although it doesn't bring out a specific typing per se you basically need to have a water resist or something with high special defense.

Many other pokemon require attention while building teams but few are only dealt with by a specific typing. Usually abilities/ move pool/ stats outweigh typing in terms of taking on threats defensively.

What ways are there to change a typing’s usage outside of simply countering/being countered by them?

As myself and others have alluded to previously the best way to do this is to make an opposing play style more viable. This is really the only way you can change the metagame without having a centralizing threat imo.

The genesect/dugtrio offensive core used in late BW/ early BW2 could easily fit onto a sun team and take out its main counters in the lati twins and heatran. This made rain less viable and sun more viable, kind of evening out their usage during that short period of time. I don't have statistics but from my experience in the upper portion of the ladder during that time I would say this is true. In this case this sort of was done by the countering/ being countered method but my point is that this could be accomplished by a support mon too. An example of this in the current metagame would be xatu, who can keep hazards off the field, wall a nice amount of threats and do great damage to steel types with sun boosted heat wave. I think without xatu sun teams would be much less effective since all other spinners are essentially dead weight under the sun.

What elements of a Pokémon are most important when dictating how it interacts with other types?

There are really infinite ways pokemon interact with each other so it is a very broad combination of things. This is why we CANNOT base our direction on typing alone. I'm aware the mods and TL have recognized this but most of the posts on here are about typing and it should stop. Sorry about that just got on my nerves a little.

Anywho, as I said things like movepool and base stats are probably the most influential, even more so in some cases than typing. Dragons are a perfect example because they really don't have the best typing yet they are insanely powerful thanks to stats and move pool so we assume they have the best typing. (granted they get some amazing resistances but I think its easily debatable that there are better types).

In this metagame, a pokemon MUST be able to interact well with a certain weather or counter a certain weather to see usage. That is a large reason why things such as poison, ice, normal etc. have such low usage and why water, dragon, grass, electric and fire all have good usage. In a weatherless metagame I would predict water, grass, electric and fire to all drop tremendously in usage due to the boost they are given by weather. I would even say psychic types would fall under this umbrella but they are given the best abilities in the game so that saves them.

It seems from the way this discussion is going the type we're trying to weaken in the context of the OU metagame is one of Fighting, Water, Steel, or Dragon.

Now, remember. To sufficiently fulfill this concept, we must accomplish two goals: Weaken a popular type in OU and strengthen an unpopular type in OU. It is unlikely that we will be able to address these with equal effort and that by some point in the CAP one of the two goals of the concept will become the 'primary' goal while another will be the 'secondary' goal. Another thing that we need to take into account is of the four types that we want to nerf, how difficult will it be to nerf each type? I bring this up because in the end, we are only creating one Pokemon that must serve two roles, one of which will undoubtedly be more difficult than the other. Since we have fleshed out which types we want to weaken more than the types we want to strengthen, I'll analyze the types that will probably end up as our "weaken" type.

Fighting is a pretty straightforward type, as it usually abuses high-power, high-accuracy attacks with great coverage to serve a wallbreaker or revenge killer role. Keldeo is generally used as a revenge killer while Terrakion is a wallbreaker and Breloom can do both. However, despite the powerful mixed attacking capabilities of each of these Pokemon, Fighting is one of the easiest types to weaken on paper. Every common Fighting move in Pokemon attacks the Physical defense stat and Fighting is the only type of the four types in question that has an immunity, i.e., Ghost. Since Fighting is such a one-dimensional type, it will not be that difficult to counter. Consequently, if we were to choose Fighting as the type to weaken, we can dedicate more time and effort to raising an unpopular type.

Water, on the other hand, is a very multifaceted type in that it can attack, defend, support, etc. It is almost always predicated on Drizzle abuse and possesses sweepers and walls that run the gamut of the OU tier. On one hand, you have attackers like Keldeo and Gyarados while on the other hand, Pokemon such as Vaporeon and Gastrodon can take hits all day. A Pokemon with the task of nerfing the Water type as a whole would require an immense degree of specialization, and as a result, we would have little leeway to also fulfill this concept's second goal. A Pokemon with the goal of defeating Water-type Pokemon would have to be able to take Rain-boosted hits from Gyarados and Keldeo while being able to break Vaporeon and Gastrodon.

Dragon and Steel go hand in hand. Not just are Dragon and Steel the two overall best types in OU, they are also complements to each other in that Steel is the only type keeping Dragon in check. For that reason, if we want to make Dragon a less popular type, we'd almost be forced to use Steel as our primary typing. The Dragon type can be summed up in one word: attack. Dragons use extremely high-powered moves with high accuracy and drawbacks to 2KO or OHKO anything that stand in their way. If the Dragon fancies a Choice item not named Scarf, there's a good chance that whatever switches into a Dragon move is either going to outspeed the Dragon or be used as death fodder. For that reason, it's pretty obvious that we'd have to give a Dragon counter a Steel typing and the means to sponge Dragon-type attacks, making a Dragon counter a pretty limiting concept right from the start. For example, our primary type would be set in stone and we'd almost be forced to give the Pokemon a defensive stat bias.

Steel, on the other hand, is the ultimate defensive type. It has three common weaknesses, but resists just about everything else (but most importantly, Dragon!). We have a wide range of options when dealing with Steel Pokemon, the first of which is Magnet Pull. We can weaken Steel as a type greatly with Magnet Pull by forcing those Leftovers-loving-lunks-of-lithium to use Shed Shell, thus diminishing their bulk. If we choose not to go with magnet Pull, we still have plenty of ways to deal with Steel, but we afford ourselves a great deal of freedom if we focus on raising a overlooked type.

For that reason, I hope that Fighting or Steel are popular choices to counter for the straightforwardness of the types, but the larger point of my post is that we should look at how difficult it is to counter a certain type. If we allow one type to be easy to counter, then we can really get at arguably the more interesting half of the concept: revitalizing an underused type.

Dragons definitely have great stats but the fact that Dragon moves get incredible neutral coverage alone is a huge plus. What they lose in SE power they make up for with those amazing stats and the sheer consistency of their damage. But this has all been said a thousand times before so I'm not going to go into a ton of detail.

What existing Pokémon individually affect the usage of entire types?
To answer the question directly: it's like how Gastrodon rose for a while to counter "Rain" in general.

If there were not steel-types to be removed from your opponent's team that would otherwise wall your dragons, people would not have used Magnezone. Not saying that without dragons people wouldn't use steels, but how Dragons could potentially OHKO everything on your team with their powerful moves shows how people need to run a resist, at least.

Let's consider a scenario without dragons: Would people still run as many steels as they do today? Definitely; it's an amazing typing in itself. However, we might see more usage of Fire, Fighting and Ground types that would rise in order to deal with them.

By extension, typing plays a very important role into how well a certain mon performs in a specific tier. Very good examples are our Fire-type friends in UU Chandelure, Darmanitan and Arcanine especially; they're all amazing in their own right, so why are they UU? The unfortunate pure-fire typing and SR weak that follows.

However, them alone influence how many Steel-types are actually viable in the tier; the only ones you see around often are Cobalion who can strike back, Bronzong who can take a hit from them and Empoleon who is neutral towards Fire anyway. Even so, only Bronzong sees the light of day more often than not; the other 2 dwadle in usage. This can be attributed to the 2 electric kings Zapdos and Raikou too, but I digress.

This is what we call a "metagame". Dominant type/mon X rises in usage -> Counter Y rises to counter X -> people use Z to counter Y -> X counters Z and -> cycle repeats. This rudimentary concept applies here as well.

What ways are there to change a typing’s usage outside of simply countering/being countered by them?

Let me talk about SR as an example again. If we made every Pokemon able to learn SR, would that lower the usage of SR-weak mons even more? There will be people that answer yes and people that answer no, but the effect would be very visible.

If we introduced a very physicall bulky mon with Flame Body and Scald, would that deter the usage of most, if not all physical sweepers away from the tier? How about a Blissey that can do things outside of wall and S-Toss/Support, in response to Special Sweepers?

Well, there actually exists one mon that does that; Snorlax. Why did he fall to UU? Well, it lies in his typing. With the rise of Fighting-types that everyone is so familiar with, being weak to a popular type is not something a mon would appreciate. But wait! Ferrothorn and co. are weak to fighting and are slow too, why is he still used so much?

The answer is the same: Typing.
Discouraging the use of certain moves or mons is a feat that, in my opinion, not a single mon can acheive alone. Unless it's as influental or Terrak or Tyranitar, it's going to be a mon that plays quite a significant role in doing what we plan for it to do.

What elements of a Pokémon are most important when dictating how it interacts with other types?

It's role.

You commonly switch Ground-Types into steels as by default they don't have anything to harm you and you can scare them away with a STAB Earthquake. You usually pit Fire-types against Grass-types as you resist their STAB and threaten to hit them back.

However, you can't switch Scarf Heatran into NP Celebi, for example. It might be able to take your fire-move, but you risk getting OHKOed by Earth Power in return.

I'm just going to chime in with some quick thoughts which also happen to, by sheer coincidence, answer one of jas's questions (kind of.)

What ways are there to change a typing’s usage outside of simply countering/being countered by them?

A lot of people seem to be approaching this concept with the idea that we have to lower one typing's usage and raise another typing's usage. When I read this concept, the most efficient way to fulfill the concept would be to approach from a different perspective. Just as an example, if we make a pokemon with a 4x weakness to Ice, then Ice type usage will increase. If we increase the usage of Ice types, then Dragon types usage will fall (there are other, similar relationships: Ghost/Fighting, Fire/Steel [even if a lot of people are in denial of the fact, Fire is an underused type,] and [underused-weather-X]/Water.) Technically this still falls under the over-arching topic of counter/ being countered, but I choose to think of it solely as CAP 5 increasing/decreasing the usage. As you can see from the incomplete syllogism a few sentences back, my mind first went to creating a pokemon with a weakness to a certain type defensively, as I assume a lot of other's did as well. Nyktos's idea is far better, as it eliminates the possibility of simply using coverage moves.

fat Nyktos said:

I think the best approach on the boosting weak types side is to create a Pokémon that has a strong STAB/coverage combination but which critically misses out on one or more underpowered types.

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That's it for now; just trying to open up a different way of looking at the problem.

Edit:@Yilx: Not worth making an entire other post to say this, but that's why I also showed my support for Nyktos's idea earlier; it remedies the problem, and can be plugged in to the syllogism with ease.

I'm just going to chime in with some quick thoughts which also happen to, by sheer coincidence, answer one of jas's questions (kind of.)

What ways are there to change a typing’s usage outside of simply countering/being countered by them?

A lot of people seem to be approaching this concept with the idea that we have to lower one typing's usage and raise another typing's usage. When I read this concept, the most efficient way to fulfill the concept would be to approach from a different perspective. Just as an example, if we make a pokemon with a 4x weakness to Ice, then Ice type usage will increase. If we increase the usage of Ice types, then Dragon types usage will fall (there are other, similar relationships: Ghost/Fighting, Fire/Steel [even if a lot of people are in denial of the fact, Fire is an underused type,] and [underused-weather-X]/Water.) Technically this still falls under the over-arching topic of counter/ being countered, but I choose to think of it solely as CAP 5 increasing/decreasing the usage. As you can see from the incomplete syllogism a few sentences back, my mind first went to creating a pokemon with a weakness to a certain type defensively, as I assume a lot of other's did as well. Nyktos's idea is far better, as it eliminates the possibility of simply using coverage moves.

That's it for now; just trying to open up a different way of looking at the problem.

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While I agree with your approach to this, the execution would probably not be done like that. If a threatening mon was 4x weak to a certain type, people would just opt for different coverage; see HP Fire Latias and Flamethrower Blissey for good examples.

Dragon, Fighting, Steel, and Water. Dragon and Fighting are the offensive powerhouses, with Dragon having incredible neutral coverage, and Fighting hitting a ton of stuff super-effectively. Steel, meanwhile, is a defensive powerhouse that has 12 resistances (including an immunity). Water, however, differs from the other three types by being so extraordinarily flexible, being able to work both offensively and defensively, not to mention having rain on their side. I, for one, probably think that Water is (or should be) the primary target for this CAP.
What shortcomings do common types have?

...not many. Fighting types have the most obvious weaknesses; due to their affinity to be on the physical side, they are easily stopped by a physically bulky Pokemon or a decent special attack. Steel types are powerful defensively, but much of the time, their offenses leave much to be desires, especially since the type is resisted by so much. Dragon and Water, on the other hand, are MUCH harder to find shortcomings for. Offensively, Dragon is stopped only by Steel, and defensively, it falls only to Ice and itself, though Dragon-types are often 4X weak to the former, plus they're rarely defensively inclined. Water is only resisted by itself, Grass, and Dragon, and is only hit super-effectively by Grass and Electric, though Water-Ground is common, nullifying.

What types are uncommon in the current metagame? Why?

A LOT. Grass, Bug, Fire, Poison, Ice, NORMAL (probably a non-factor now), and probably Electric as well. Most of these falter against the popular Steel type (while Poison is completely ineffective), and Fire (as well as Electric, if we're counting that), falls to the omnipresent Earthquake and is resisted by Dragon. Ice, while awesome offensively, sucks defensively, hit super-effectively by Fighting and, of all things, STEEL. Poison also suffers from Ground weakness, and sucks offensively. Bug, Fire, and Ice all fall to Stealth Rock.

Flying is an honorable mention because while it isn't exactly uncommon, it isn't very well utilized.

What positive features do these underused types possess?

Not a lot when grouped together. However, they have some good qualities individually. Both Fire and Ice are offensively powerful, being able to hit Steel and Dragon respectively. Grass types possess useful resistances to Water and Ground, as well as hitting them (and Rock) super-effectively, while Poison is also useful defensively, resisting Fighting and having few weaknesses (though the fact that one of these weaknesses is Ground is troublesome). Bug is able to take down Psychic and Dark types.

What existing Pokémon individually affect the usage of entire types?

Politoed is a huge one, as it can summon rain, which neuters Fighting-types while giving rise to Water-types and sheltering Steel types from one of their few weaknesses (or in some cases, their ONLY weakness). Tyranitar and Hippowdon can summon Sand, which increases the usage of Steel-types, which are not damaged by Sand. Ninetales summons sun, which, while doing SOMETHING to help Fire-types, destroys Ice types.

However, there's a ubiquitous factor that ISN'T a Pokemon, but is very important to the dominance of the overused types: STEALTH ROCK. This ONE move, easily learnable by many Pokemon, has neutered Bug, Fire, Flying, and Ice Pokemon, taking 1/4 HP off if they aren't neutral to Rock, severely limiting the selection.

What ways are there to change a typing’s usage outside of simply countering/being countered by them?

Being able to assist underused types, while being assisted by said underused types, is a good way to increase a types usage. Dragons appreciate Fighting types to be able to take care of Steel types. So why can't we use that for our CAPmon? It would be able to take care of Pokemon that are hindering the use of the underused types, and the underused types would be able to help it.

Finally, what elements of a Pokémon are most important when dictating how it interacts with other types?

I'd say the CAP's typing is the most important element for how it interacts with an individual type. Abilities come second, as they provide resistances or immunities (though the only useful one in this CAP would be Water Absorb). Stats can be important, as a bulky Pokemon can sponge neutral attacks, and a offensive powerhouse can deal devastating hits to those that don't resist. Movepool is most important for a large variety of types; a wide movepool keeps some usually hard-counters at bay, while Rapid Spin makes life easier for Fire, Ice, Bug, and Flying types.

tl;dr: Thus, I think the best Pokemon for this CAP would be one that can be not only a counter to those that hinder some types, but one that can assist, and be assisted by, Pokemon of underused types.

You know, we can mine some ideas from one of our previously most effective CAPs, Voodoom.

Zapdos may have been OU, but it's usage did rise along with Togekiss, which leads to another possibility in this CAP's building process. Making or breaking a core.

One of the things this discussion is breaking out is what types are found on teams together. Steel goes with Rain, taking one of it's weaknesses away. Dragon and Steel compliment so well most teams have examples of both.

If a Pokemon can take on two haves of common typing cores, then other resistant typings, or other creative options will rise in usage.

Offensive cores may also shift typings around to gain proper resistances, though this would have to be carefully chosen with Steel, simply cause it resists so darn much.

While it sounds overpowering keep in mind we can add fatal flaws at the stat stage. High speed with little defensive stats for instance.

Going to kind of drive a dead horse home here, but Politoed bar none has the single greatest effect on any one type's usability in the entire game: Specifically, it makes Fire types nearly impossible to use on any non-Weather team.

Politoed is a great example of a pokemon that can shut down a entire type all by itself, as not only does it already resist Fire type attacks, it is also Supereffective against them, and to add insult to injury summons a permanent field effect that can only be countered by four other pokemon and three moves that nerfs Fire type attacks while further boosting a type that's already Supereffective against it. If we want to look at a pokemon who raises the effectiveness of a type (Water) while at the same time lowering the effectiveness of another (Fire), we need look no further then the toad.

and yes before someone tries to say "BUT BUT BUT CLOSE COMBAT BUT INFERNAPE SUCKS IN OU BUT BUT" I know infernape sucks in OU and that no sane Infernape user will ever keep it in vs toed. If you would kindly look past the natural urge to belittle things that aren't relevant, my point is that politoed is the most effective pokemon at shutting down a type in the entire game, as it resists the type it shuts down, boots a type that is supereffective against that type, and on top of it all nerfs that type.

Or in otherwords the easiest way to shut down another pokemon is to resist it and summon a field effect that nerfs it further while boosting types that already killmurder it. But obviously the most important part is the fact that you can do this via ability. So I would say what you should take from this is that the ability is the most important thing when it comes to shutting down entire types with a single pokemon.

^ That was a spectacularly poor example. Any half decent player knows that Ferrothorn isn't going to stay on Infernape, so why use a fire attack knowing that Politoed is going to switch in instead of using Close Combat which OHKO's Ferrothorn and 2HKO's Politoed?
Also, why would Infernape stay against a Politoed at full health?
You could replace Politoed with a generic water type and it wouldn't change anything.

Looking at the fire types in UU Victini is the only one that could be consisently used in OU if it wasn't for rain, but the others are frail, slow or a combination of both.

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You're quite missing the point here. He's just putting across how Politoed neuters fire types so easily just by switching in; the Fire attack was meant for Ferro; this is a very basic situation with minimal thinking and prediction.

Darma is (almost) usuable at 95 speed and pretty much has almost one of the the strongest attack in the game in STAB LO Sheer Force Flare Blitz in it's arsenal and Arcanine has Extremespeed, Flare Blitz, Close Combat and Wild Charge; don't downplay them.

I think Homeslice and Jynx KB have a good point in mentioning (offensive) cores. (And giving Offensive Ice as a decent example of what would create a good core)
As cores always revolve around more than just one pokemon, most often two and sometimes even 3, if we can invent a core that utilized less common typings, but together can work to combat the more prevalent strategies like Rain or Dragon spammage, you've effectively fulfilled the concept.
Even more important, when you know you can rely on the power of other pokemon to combat Dragons, Waters, Steels and Fighting, and are actually building around the qualities of other lesser used pokemon, CAP5 itself doesn't have to be ludicrous in it's capabilities. The only way to make CAP5 counter all the common mons that sport those typings is to something close to Arceus in stats and capabilities. That is, if he'd have to perform the job all on his own.

I think we could definitely create a mon that is somewhat reliant on lesser used helpers, but when used together, they can quite effectively combat some of the more commonly used types/strategies.

The pic by nyttyn gave me an idea: what if we do a Drought weather starter which actually does not suck like Ninetales? I don't know if this kind of discussion is ok for a concept assessment thread, but I'll have a shot at it anyway since it can be quite interesting.

Doing a Drought starter that is a decent pokemon overall would meet both of the "conditions" in the concept statement. It would be a huge boon for Sun teams, since winning weather wars would be easier, and the pokemon could have an utility itself (except shooting out Will-O-Wisps and trying to catch the Politoed switch-in with Sunny Day), and this would obviously increase the amount of usage Fire pokemon receive. On the other hand, it would cripple quite seriously the usage of Water pokemon, since they don't work well in Sun, and if that weather condition could be brought out with consistency (as opposed at what Ninetales do) it could be a very serious threat to that type.

We can think a million ways to do a better Drought inducer, like not making it weak to Water; we won't (necessarily) achieve the effective x4 resistance shown by nyttyn's pic, but we could get a nice effective x2 resistance to switch with relative impunity on Toed and on many other Water types. Other ways to implement this could be through stats and movepool, really, there are quite a lot of ways to do so.

Now, I'm not 100% sure if it was decided to avoid using Drizzle, Drought, Sand Stream and Snow Warning in CAP; in that case, just ignore my post. Otherwise it could be a cool way to impement the concept while also partially addressing the concerns on weather that were expressed in the concept submission phase.

I agree that abilities are an important part of shutting down types, as Drizzle and Drought, as well as Flash Fire, Lighting Rod, Storm Drain, Volt Absorb, Water Absorb etc etc however that actual pokemons typing plays a much bigger part in shutting down types. Ferrothorn, has a shit ability (in terms of shutting down a type I guess), but a fantastic typing, which aids many players in attempting to curb the strength of rain.

EDIT

what if we do a Drought weather starter which actually does not suck like Ninetales?

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prolly cos it would then break sun I guess. Idk if thats what people really want, but if we are attempting to make a balanced CAP for the OU metagame, creating something that has a high chance at breaking other weather doesn't sound enjoyable, and could impact heavily on the results of our testing.

Flash Fire, coupled with its resistances to make it viable, cause a big drop in the usage of Fire-type moves because of its popularity.

Additionally, while Earthquake is an amazing move, Ground-types struggle with it being their STAB due to every single Pokèmon being able to become immune using the Air Balloon. While it's stupid to assume every Pokèmon will use an Air Balloon, it's used enough to consider when looking at certain Ground-types that struggle.

[01:03]Ferrothorn, has a shit ability (in terms of shutting down a type I guess), but a fantastic typing, which aids many players in attempting to curb the strength of rain.

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And how successful would you say it's been on that front?

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Weather abilities have one massive advantage over all others: Unless you have a weather starter of your own, weather starting abilities are the only abilities that continue past the death of the owner. This is a big deal; it's not like how Heatran can switch into a fire attack to nullify it, once Politoed switches in, Fire attacks suck for the rest of the entire game.

When I saw the first post with an obnoxious pic I was like "whatever", but doing it again with multiple (unnecessarily large, even) pics makes me think that this is really getting out of hand. The purpose of this thread is discussion, not random pics. Let's not abuse the ability to post pics, please. I deleted Yilx's pics, too, for good measure, no offense to that fellow who makes people explode.

Okay, so alot of people focusing on the sun team and it's uses to change the OU type shift, fair enough. However, there is a reason why Rain dominates Sun now and it's not solely down to the fact that Politoed>Ninetales.

If we use Nyttyn example of the Infernape vs Ferrorthorn->Politoed switch there is a major thing that was mentioned there. Rain hampers those strong fire attacks aimed at the present steel types from a Pokemon that already resists that type.

Lets take a situation with Ninetales instead and a type that compliments the power of the Sun, grass.

So, you have Venusaur vs. the Same Infernape. Incoming fire move is obvious so we switch out Venusaur for Ninetales to resist the hit but, oh-oh the sun has now powered up Infernapes power allowing it to be a wrecking machine and hit Ninetales hard. So that Infernape that threatened Venusaur can hit harder thanks to dought.

Okay, so lets use another example, Flying, another popular type and for the sake fo this example I am going to use a actual straight forward, non tricky type of flying Pokemon we see in the OU tier and just use Swellow.

Venusaur again vs. Swellow. You have a powerful flying hit going to attack something on your team and the Drought pokemon maker, Ninetales doesn't resist it.

My point is, Rain is so good because the types that gain from it have great supportive roles for each other, water and steel help resist each others weaknesses.

Fire and Grass don't do that however in that example because the Drought inducer is buffing the oncoming Fire move they don't really help balance out each others weakness and resistances. A pure Steel and Pure water type maybe be the case more balanced between Fire and Grass but due to their secondary typings, such as Steel/Grass taking away some weakness and adding resistances to attacks, low and behold Water hates taking (Electric).
What existing Pokémon individually affect the usage of entire types?

We all know a major answer to this is weather. Politoed helps bring Water and Steel usage, as well as Flying due to Hurricane up on those levels as they all help support each other and work in tandem in their Weaknesses and Resistances.

Ninetales as can be seen doesn't have the same effect because it doesn't really shut down and weaken a type through a simple switch in the same way Politoed does. It weakens Water moves by 50% but the weather inducing Pokemon is already weak to it. Bring back in Politoed and Bam, you are once again on the back foot due to a stronger Weather inducer. Whats that? Ninetales carry's Energy Ball?! But you have Ferrothorn to soak that move up. NEXT

What ways are there to change a typing’s usage outside of simply countering/being countered by them?

Types usage is highly changed again, depending on the environment that surrounds them. Using steel as an example, a prime weakness of water, electric, isn't weakned or resisted by Steel in any means. It does however, as mentioned above, support water in other means and vice versa. If we go down into another tier, we see that the whole dynamic changes, suddenly Stalling and Entry hazards are vital, so you see types down there (such as Posion) increasing due to the roles they play in soaking up AND setting their own hazards.

It's about environment and how/where certain things exsist. Movepools help aleviate a types shortcomings to an extent, which brings me on to my next point.
What elements of a Pokémon are most important when dictating how it interacts with other types?

This one has many answers because there are so many contributing factors involved. Let's take Magnezone for instance and one of the answers to this question. For this example, both Magnezone have a Timid nature with max Sp.Atk and Speed.

Now this is just an example but two different movesets, and due to two differences (Magnest Rise and the differentiating HP) you are now playing completely differently against different types. Second set you switch in on a water Pokemon, they switch into, let's say Dragonite packing Earthquake ready to scare you, you Magnet Rise and boom, HP Ice. Take the same situation in with the first set. You can stall through clever usage but you are relying on Parahax to whittle D.Nite down and you can still be killed through Earthquake. But the first set has a better time with Heatran due to HP Ground and T.Wave where as the second set doesn't.

But then again, replace the seond set with Sturdy and a whole mess of type taking on opens up against Ground pokemon who can't take two HP Ice and are slower then Magnezone.

As I said it's a big ask but I think making another weather type a tad more powerful may be the way to possibly go, and to do that, maybe we create a weather inducer that doesn't fear the lead Politoed so much. This is an example but think of a Grass/Electric type with Drought. Resists the water type attacks Politoed throws and then can counter back with a 100% accurate Thunder in it's face, kill Politoed, then turn the weather straight into Sun. suddenly those Steel types are fearing Fire more with it's boost and water pokemon switching to take them can't risk them packing a powerful Solar beam. Hurricane isn't a reliable move anymore either to be throwing about the place. Granted it doesn't exactly "fix" everything as we still have Dragons but you can see the effect it has

So maybe the actual answer is, by countering Politoed and his Drizzle, you drastically change the way the Meta-game goes with it's typing. The major question is, how do we counter it effectively? As above is an example, or instead of powering the sun up, we destroy the weather completely? I don't know it is currently very open ended to put something concrete but thats my 2 cents.

Sorry for wall of text and if the opinions are abit all over the place, not used to this lol.

So of these Pokèmon, we had 5 Pokèmon more inclined to be attacking (Scizor, Ferrothorn, Dragonite, Tyranitar, Breloom), 4 Pokèmon more inclined to be special attacking (Politoed, Heatran, Rotom-W, and Latios), and 1 Pokèmon that could go either way (Jirachi).

From these stats, we don't see much of a trend towards physical attackers rather than special attacking. So really, a perfect Pokèmon wouldn't just be taking boosted Outrages, it need to take boosted Hydro Pumps and Draco Meteors too.

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Reading this, I realize a potential path we could go. EVERY ONE of those physical attackers hates being burned (Scizor is neutered, Dragonite loses his revenge killing ability, Tyranitar can't switch in as much, Breloom's priority is wreaked, and continual damage on a Forretress is always nice - although, it can heal it), and most of the rest hate paralysis (Politoad doesn't mind as much, but the rest lose any potential scarf use or otherwise attempts at speed).

Perhaps Status effects should be the thing we focus on here. If I use Will-O-Wisp, only Fire types (of which OU has very few) can effectively stop it. If I use Glare, only Ghost types stop it (and glare is an example of a paralysis move that is underutilized).

Also, there are other things. We have almost all agreed that Steel, Dragon, Water, and Fighting are the "dominant" types. High physical defense would defeat Fighting types - if not a Flash Fire style ability for Fighting. (forcing them to use coverage moves like Breloom's Seed Bomb/Bullet Seed, or Earthquake, or Ice Punch or somesuch) Steel's resistances are useful, but every great sweeper runs a move to beat Steels nowadays - they're used more for checking other types, like Dragons, and thusly weakening other types will help. Water makes use of Rain, and the type would not be half as good without it - in this case, either something to stop weather or set up another one would be useful. And Dragons... well, they're going to be an issue no matter what, and stopping those is probably the hardest thing we can try.

prolly cos it would then break sun I guess. Idk if thats what people really want, but if we are attempting to make a balanced CAP for the OU metagame, creating something that has a high chance at breaking other weather doesn't sound enjoyable, and could impact heavily on the results of our testing.

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This may or may not be true; Water type also holds other advantages that usual members of Sun teams doesn't have. Typical Drizzle abusers are not crippled by Stealth Rock except a handful of those, they still resist Fire (and can retaliate for neutral damage taking into account weather and type effectiveness) even in Drought against Fire types. Furthermore, you can abuse Drizzle in a higher number of ways compared to Drought (just spamming strong double STAB attacks, removing weaknesses to Fire that lets you use one of the best defensive types in the game with much less worries, Rain Dish, Dry Skin, perfectly accurate Thunders and Hurricanes; Drought "only" gets powerful STABs and Clorophyll (and the main abusers of the latter are Grass types)). Drizzle abusers are also generally "stronger" than Drought ones: just compare Keldeo to Infernape, or Ferrothorn to...Cresselia? SpD Heatran in Sun? To sum up, giving a decent (not incredibly powerful, mind you) pokemon to Sun teams for setting up Drought is not necessarily breaking them, since the Fire type (and Drought abusers) is not as strong as the Water type (and Drizzle abusers), as just exposed (admittedly in a very confused manner, but I hope the point is clear). If it STILL ends up breaking Sun, I think that it could be interpreted as a strong argument towards weather banning from OU, since giving only something not garbage to Sun teams for setting their weather ends up breaking them.

However, I can see your concerns about "not sounding enjoyable", that's surely a valid point. I still wanted to clarify mi position a bit. hopefully I've succeeded in that.